REWRITING calamity → the walking dead ¹

eight.

CHAPTER EIGHT,
roomies.

Aiden was still shaken up from the needle incident. Her mind still running wild with old terrors and red rimmed eyes.

She was a silent girl in a room full of loud people.

But her people were happy. They were drinking and eating an actual meal. Not fish from the quarry, a meal she didn't know she would grow to miss. Or squirrel meat that the Dixon's caught. They were laughing, joking. Smiling. They were smiling.

Aiden sat on the counter beside Glenn, holding a whole wine bottle between her fingers. Her plan? Get absolutely trashed.

"You know, in Italy children have a little bit of wine with dinner. And in France." Dale said to Lori as he handed her a glass of wine.

"Well, when Carl is in Italy or France, he can have some then." Lori said sternly.

"What's it gonna hurt? Come on." Rick said to his wife, "Come on." He laughed at her stare. "What?"

Lori uncovered Carl's glass and Dale poured a small bit of wine in it. "There you are, young lad." He handed Carl the cup.

Carl brought it to his lips and everyone laughed at his reaction. "Ew!" Aiden snorted at his reaction, already tipsy.

"That's my boy. That's my boy. Good boy." Lori said to her son as she poured his wine into her own.

"Yuck." Carl whined. "That tastes nasty."

"Well, just stick to soda pop there, bud." Shane said to Carl.

"Not you, Glenn." Daryl spoke suddenly, seeing the young man eyeing a bottle.

"What?" Glenn laughed.

"Keep drinking, little man. I want to see how red your face can get." Daryl urged him on.

Rick stood up all of a sudden. "It seems we haven't thanked our host properly." He said to the group.

"He's more than just our host." T-Dog spoke, raising his glass to the man.

"Hear hear!"

"Here's to you, Doc. Booyah!" Daryl yelled loudly.

"Booyah!" Aiden raised her bottle with shaking hands.

"So when are you gonna tell us what the hell happened here, doc?" Shane asked. "All the- the other doctors that were supposed to be figuring out what happened, where are they?"

"We're celebrating, Shane." Rick told his best friend. "Don't need to do this now."

"Woah, wait a second. This is why we're here, right? This was your move- supposed to find all the answers. Instead we- we found him. Found one man. Why?"

"Well, when things got bad, a lot of people just left, went off to be with their families. And when things got worse, when the military cordon got overrun, the rest bolted." Jenner explained.

"Every last one?" Shane questioned.

"No, many couldn't face walking out the door. They... opted out. There was a rash of suicides. That was a bad time." Jenner said to them.